Can you imagine caramel custard without sugar? Or Sherlock Holmes, without his pipe?

Similarly we cannot imagine a world of architectural fabrications without ‘steel’.

Never will you have read a more informal beginning to a corporate brand’s product oriented blog. But when we talk about Steel, use of technical jargons simply takes us, as commoners, away from the age old association that we have had with this wonderful alloy!

With a similar thermal expansion coefficient to that of concrete, without ‘steel’ the world of infrastructure would not look anything like what it does today. For DFI, it’s always been a wand of steel that has helped us cast the spell of transforming infrastructural creations over the last couple of years.

And thus a blog dedicated to some lucid content that can help you understand the difference between the two kinds of steel that find the maxim usage based on their strength, aesthetics, hardness and cost-efficiency, in the world of infrastructure today- stainless steel vs mild steel.

Lets’ get inside the foundry…

Stainless Steel properties…is it all about the 10.5% Chromium content?

‘Stainless’: A steel that is free from the usual rusting impact of water exposure over time. Well, wondering how is that achieved? The composition of stainless steel will always have a minimum of 10.5% of chromium content which creates a protective layer over the steel surface, often referred to as the ‘passive layer’, providing the alloy an increased power to resist corrosion. The composition might as well include varying valence of other metals like Carbon, Silicon, Nickel or Manganese for added resistance and formability quotient.

Mild Steel properties…does low carbon mean less usability?

Absolutely not.
Though the carbon content is at times as low as 0.25%, mild steel properties state its highly beneficial in projects that depend on the usability of pure Iron. Through the BOS process, blowing oxygen through the chunks of molten raw iron and adding scrapped steel into the converter gives birth to mild steel that has high demands owing to its terrific weldability.

Stainless Steel vs Mild Steel: now the Differences…

Stainless steel properties, with the additional hardness and corrosion resistance are much less flexible when it comes to malleability. Mild steel properties find great usage in creation of surfaces that are to be coated with color polishes or are internal pieces of huge machinery. Mild Steel as well depicts certain gradations on which its application varies. However for its bendable nature it is one of the most widely used alloy for fabrications.

Did you know?
High grade stainless steel properties state is comparatively brittle. And thus the tensile strength of stainless steel is much more than that of Mild steel. In sense of application manufacturing pipes, nuts and bolts, hinges, knives and magnets are common everyday utilities where you shall find Mild steel. The way that mild steel can be further hardened is through the addition of carbon, and can be made corrosion resistant through the process of ‘galvanization’.

Now coming down to the economic aspect attached. Since stainless steel involves a passive cover of chromium, its cost of production is certainly higher as compared to mild steel. The procuring of stainless steel requires more skilled workers, making it even more expensive a product. Thus for projects that need to be concluded with a cost crunch in mind, mild steel will be the option preferred.

‘Gifts of steel’ from the house of DFI…

With an array of products catering to the different engineering infrastructural requirements of India, DFI’s fabricated MS and SS items (like Vending Machines, Bolted / Knocked down Structures such as pan shops and booths), our lookout has always been towards not just creating buyers in the market, but educating our buyers and leading them towards wiser decisions when they make a purchase from the infrastructure industry.

Hence, next time you need to make a choice for which steel would suit your project make an independent yet learned move, and own it. Your decision might look too micro to you, but it is these micro decisions that are important when we look at the national infrastructure in the long run. If you are still in hesitation as to which steel kind would work out the best for your project, then you have our crew of learned engineers to help you take the right call.

We build to share. We share to grow.